Seeing Red
by Casteline
Summary: Laura is dead, but she's also standing right in front of him, and she remembers him, talks like they know each other, but he knows he's never met her, so how exactly does she know him? Sterek.


_This one really got away from me. It was kind of just supposed to be a couple hundred words, with no shipping at all, but somehow this happened. I actually and really pleased with it. Enjoy._

_Oh, it's Sterek, but also Stiles/Laura. Read it and you'll understand._

* * *

**Seeing Red**

He meets her when he's away at college. The first time he sees her, he's sitting in a coffee shop, studying for his orgo exam, when she walked in to order a coffee. He doesn't notice her at first, because his head is buried in his notes, but when he looks up, unable to stare at complex compounds any longer, he catches her staring him. He blinks, and looks around, because she couldn't possibly be staring at him, but, oh, yes she is. _Why_ is she staring at him?

He smiles kind of weirdly at her, because how exactly is he supposed to act. But she just smiles back at him and takes her coffee from the barista and leaves the shop, and leaves Stiles _very_ confused.

He sees her a lot after that. In the hallway after class. In the library, hiding in the stacks. All over.

But the first time he meets her, he's sitting in the grass overlooking the lake, and this time, he's studying for calculus. A shadow suddenly takes over his light, but he ignores it, thinking it would go away. Sure, there are dozens of other students sitting around, but there was surely room for one more to sit.

But the shadow sits down next to him, _right_ next to him, and he's forced to look up, and it's _her_.

She smiles and hands him a Danish, which he pointedly doesn't eat.

"Do I know you?" he asks.

She shrugged. "Probably not."

She's dressed strangely, wearing a red cloak with a hood, but he doesn't comment on it because she's kind of beautiful in a really…

Well, in a really familiar way, but he can't really place it.

"You forgot the integral on number eleven," she says with a smile, and all he can think is how weird that smile looks, how it doesn't quite seem like it belongs on her face. But before he can question her further, she's on her feet, talking away, her cloak flapping in the breeze.

"Wait!" he says, slamming his book closed and grabbing his bag as he took off after her. She turns to him with that odd smile.

"Yes?"

"Laura."

Her smile changes and he knows he's right.

"How are you…"

She shrugs.

"What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you," she says, like it should have been obvious.

"Wha-what?"

She smiles sadly. "I knew it was different. That's why I didn't say anything at first. But I couldn't stay away."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm not from here," she says slowly. "I don't know how. But I'm from somewhere else. Somewhere where we were… close. But you hardly know me here. Because I'm dead here."

Stiles blinks several times. "You from, like, an alternate universe. One where you didn't die. Obviously."

"Obviously," she repeats.

"Wait! Does Derek know you're here?"

She shakes her head.

"What? Why not?!"

"Because I don't know why I'm here. How, or why, or for how long. He won't have the answers I need, and I know it'll be worse if I see him."

"Why? Why would that be worse?"

"Because I intend to find my way back home. Back to my Beacon Hills, back to my Stiles."

Stiles nods for a moment, but then. "_Your_ Stiles?"

"Obviously I have a Stiles where I'm from, how else would I know you?"

"No, obviously. But the way you said it… like he's _yours_."

She shrugs, smiling in that strange way. "Because he is."

Stiles' mouth hangs open in shock and she let out a little laugh.

"Never thought I'd see you shocked into silence."

"I'm not…" he tries to argue, but he really is that blown away. "I'm with Derek in this universe," he says finally.

"Kinda figured," she says, scrunching her nose in a funny little smile.

"I'm with Derek here, but with you there?"

"Well, Derek isn't… he's dead, where I'm from."

Stiles' mouth falls open again. "You're dead here, and he's dead there. What about your family?"

She nods. "Dead."

"So it's all the same, except where one sibling dies instead of the other, and I end up with the Alpha either way?"

"There's probably a few other differences, but, yeah."

"And that's why you don't want to see him. Because he's your brother and you don't want to have him back just to lose him again."

"I'm sure he'd feel the same."

"I really don't think he would."

"Do you think you can help me?" she asks.

"I… I want to. Of course. But I'm not exactly a theoretical astrophysicist. This isn't my area of expertise."

"But you're good with a computer."

He smiles. "Yeah. That I am."

She follows him back to his dorm, where he sits down at his laptop and she hovers over his shoulder, just like Derek would, if he was there instead, and Stiles can't help but think how weird it all is.

"Very weird," Laura agrees, though Stiles hadn't realized he said anything out loud. "You smell so much like him, and it's weird. Like, part of me just wants to see him again, and part of me wants to tear him apart for getting his scent all over you. But at the same time… you're different. Similar, but not quite my Stiles."

When she's gone, once he's helped her find her way home, he can't help but wonder about soulmates. It wasn't something he'd ever really thought about before, but realizing that there was a universe out there that he was with someone other than Derek was _weird_. And what if soulmates were real? Does that mean that one Stiles got the short end of the stick, that one Stiles wasn't quite as happy as the other?

If that's the case, he likes to think he's the happier one.


End file.
